Brace for impact

Some of my greatest fears:

Death of a loved one
Extreme physical pain
Being poor
Wars that go on forever
Hatred and ignorance
Looking like a fool

Oh, wait. Scratch that last one. Used to scare me, but with experience, it’s lost a lot of its ferocity.

Everyone seems to have something to say about fear, FDR being the first to come to mind. “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” Hmm…

A German Proverb advises that “fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.” Evidently, it can also make the wolf materialize from nothing, as that poor boy who cried wolf can confirm. But I mean really – what civilized people would ignore his cries and let him be eaten just because he pranked them a time or two before?

Then there’s a Moorish proverb – “he who fears something gives it power over him.” And the positive approach in “feed your faith and your fears will starve to death.” The writer Mencken says “the one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear – fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexplicable. What he wants above everything else is safety.” Hey, what’s wrong with craving a little safety, I ask? He makes it sound like a wimpy desire. Patton offers this more balanced perspective. “There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.” Oh, the wisdom to know the one time from the other.

But on magical days like today when planes crash into rivers and everyone walks off alive, fear is overcome by hope. Here’s to survival!!